Iran has the “inalienable right” to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. There is no evidence anywhere that a nuclear program exists in Iran. What they are doing is perfectly legal. Get over it.

dave742 on April 8, 2008 at 4:21 PM

Wyrd:
What evidence do you have that Iran wants to engage in an “expansionistic war”? Is it their history of not having started a war in over 1,000 years?

dave742 on April 8, 2008 at 4:34 PM

upinak:
I’ve seen that movie already, Yes, it’s an informative way to see history.

Someone brought up the “wiped off the map” quote. This quote is from the “World Without Zionism” Speech of Oct. 26, 2005, but Ahmadinejad did not say that Israel should be wiped from the map. It is a mistranslation.
First of all, there is no such expression in Farsi. Second, he was speaking of the Israeli government, and not the country itself. He said that the Israeli government should “vanish from the pages of time.” He had just finished talking about how this had happened with respect to the Shah’s regime in Iran and the regime in the Soviet Union. He was talking about regime change, not military obliteration of another country. Find someone who knows Farsi, and have them translate this: صفحه روزگار محو شود . It means vanish from the pages of time, and it was directed at the Israeli government.

He repeats this theme often. On Dec. 12, 2006, he said:

“As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated.”

Once again, he is talking about the Zionist regime vanishing as the Soviet Union did. As I remember, nobody wiped the Soviet Union from the map, it collapsed internally. That’s what Ahmadinejad is talking about in relation to Israel.

Arabic media confirmed that Ahmadinejad was misquoted. From Al-Alam TV:

“Ahmadinezhad’s statements which, contrary to reports carried by the news agencies, did not contain any call for putting an end to Israel’s existence or erasing it from the map; instead they were an analytical reference to the bitter reality facing the Palestinian people who are defending, as he put it, the Islamic nation by proxy.” (1)

Everyone in the Middle East knows that Ahmadinejad was misquoted. It’s only American’s under the spell of their “free” media that believe it.

I do know of a couple on incidents where the term “wiped off the map” was used, but it was not by Ahmadinejad. One was by Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command in WWII, who said, “the Japs we will be worried about all the time until they are wiped off the face of the map.” The other was from Israeli cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit, who said, “We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map.”

The only examples I find where this term was really used is from the US and Israel, not Iran. Can someone show me where Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of Israel in reality?

1) BBC Monitoring International Reports, “Iranian Leader Did Not Call For ‘Erasing Israel From Map’ –Al-Alam TV, Oct. 28, 2005

dave742 on April 8, 2008 at 7:31 PM

Asher:

“Perhaps he was ‘misquoted’”

How did you guess? Actually, it is partially misquoted, and partially taken out of context. Regarding the word “myth,” there is some question as to whether this is the correct word, and that a better translation is “legend”. According to the American Iranian Council, Ahmadinejad used the word “afsaneh,” which they claim means “myth, untrue, false, without factual base.” (1) Most other sources, however, translate the word “myth” as “Ostureh.” A writer at Tel Aviv University translates “Afsaneh” as “legend,” and specifically in the context of a book that claims “that the Holocaust was an instrument… created to justify the establishment of the Jewish state.” (2) This is how Ahmadinejad was using the word, especially when looked at in context. Let’s look at the context. He asked two questions, here’s the first:

“The first question is that where have these people, who are ruling Palestine today and allowing themselves to do whatever they want to and murdering, imprisoning local people and making them homeless, come from?… Where were they living until one or two thousand years ago? Why are they allowed to impose their rule and have the right to determine fates, whilst the people who have been living there for hundreds and even thousands of years don’t have the right to determine their fate. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s solution is very clear. The Iranian nation is saying that the only fundamental way to resolve the Palestinian issue is for all the indigenous residents to take part in a referendum and express their views about their government and the future of Palestine.”

Here’s the second:

“The second question I asked was: If you are telling the truth about you murdering and burning 6m Jews during World War II in gas chambers – and apparently you are telling the truth and emphasizing on your claim because you arrest, condemn and imprison anyone and even your scholars who are against this issue….My question is that why does the innocent Palestinian nation have to pay the price of this heinous crime you committed? Why are you using those killings as a pretext to come to the heart of the Islamic world and dear Palestine and impose a phoney Zionist regime on the innocent people of that land? If you have committed the crime, then you have to pay the price.” (3)

These are two fair questions that have never been addressed, because it is impossible to come up with an honest answer that makes any sense.
The issues that are brought up in these questions are what is central to what Ahmadinejad is saying. The main issue is not that Ahmadinejad is saying the Holocaust is a fabrication, but that it has been used to take over another peoples land. Similar to what the U of Tel Aviv writer says when he uses the word “Afsaneh,” Ahmadinejad believes that the Holocaust has been used as an instrument to create the state of Israel. I agree. I do not believe Israel would not exist today had the Holocaust not have happened. Ahmadinejad was not saying that the Holocaust was a “myth” in the sense of being untrue, but that the Holocaust was being raised to mythical proportions. This is why he says that in Israel the Holocaust has been raised to a greater importance than even their belief in God. Also, he repeatedly alludes to the fact that the Holocaust may have happened, but he wonders why, if it did, it isn’t the perpetrators of the crime that are the ones to make the reparations. I think he has a good point.
Even if the word used was “myth,” I think it is important to realize what the definition of that word is. It does not automatically mean “an untrue story.” Merriam Webster’s first definition is “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” (4) Only later definitions bring up the idea of “an unfounded or false notion.” It is in this sense that Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner of Brown University uses the word when he says “The myth of Holocaust and redemption is valid in Israel, where it is part of the civil religion by which the people there explain themselves to themselves.” (5) This Jewish scholar is not denying that the Holocaust happened when he uses the word “myth” in connection with it, but he is using the word according to its definition.
Do you think Israel should be bombed because an Israeli scholar used the word “myth” in connection with the Holocaust?

1) amirahmadi.org/Writing/Articles/AhmadinejadIsrael-01-05-06.pdf
2) tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2005/menashri.html
3) BBC Monitoring Middle East, “Iran’s Ahmadinezhad rejects Jewish Holocaust as ‘myth’,” Dec. 14, 2005. A copy can be found here:
homelandsecurityus.com/iranfull
4) m-w.com/dictionary/myths
5) Newsweek, “Debate Over the Holocaust,” March 10, 1980, by Kenneth L. Woodward with Eloise Salholz

Rokemronnie:

Tell us how he was mistranslated.

I did.

Then explain why the Iranian gov’t controlled press agency used the exact phrase when publicizing Eichmanthenutjob’s remarks.

IRNA did not correctly translate into English what Ahmadinejad said. If the US translated all of Bushes remarks into Farsi, they might make mistakes as well. It matters what he actually said, not what IRNA wrote in its English translation. The IRNA speech in Farsi said what I showed above, and it means what I said it does.

“God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime.”

Show me that this came from IRNA. From what I can tell, this came from June 3, 2007.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted the same line as:
“The countdown for the Zionist regime’s (Israel’s) collapse has started – inshallah (God willing), we will soon witness the collapse of this regime.” (ROUNDUP: Ahmadinejad: Collapse of Israel imminent, June 3, 2007)

Aain, regime change.

AFP also reported this quote from the same speech:
“’Iran is not trying to make aggression against other countries. It only wants that its right be accepted and will not accept the injustice of the great powers,’retorted Ahmadinejad.”
Agence France Presse — English
June 3, 2007 Sunday 7:13 PM GMT
Iran ‘invincible’ in nuclear standoff: Ahmadinejad

We don’t have to rely on MSM quotes, because I have the whole speech, and here is the quote in context as translated by the BBC:
BBC Monitoring International Reports
June 4, 2007 Monday
IRANIAN PRESIDENT WARNS ISRAEL NOT TO ATTACK LEBANON
LENGTH: 6430 words

“As to the question of Lebanon, I have to issue a warning, both to the system of hegemony and to some of the countries of the region. Last year, the Zionist regime, with the support of corrupt world powers, imagined that Lebanon was the region’s weak link and that it could score a brilliant victory with a lightening strike and find a way of rescuing the system of hegemony, which has sunk into a quagmire in our region. But, by God’s grace, with the resistance of the children of the imam [Khomeyni] and with the obedience of the culture of the imam by the nation of the imam, the awe of the Zionist system was shattered.
Since last year, they’ve been drawing up plans. They’re equipping themselves. They’re planning. Today, by creating domestic conflict and tension in Lebanon and sedition and rebellion in Lebanon, they want to pave the way for a new onslaught and for a victory. I say to the Lebanese nation: You must be careful. Political groups in Lebanon must be vigilant. The key to your honour is unity and resistance. The key to your victory is unity and resistance. I’ll say to the countries of the region: God forbid, God forbid that, at a time when the Zionist regime and its masters are drowning in a self-made quagmire, you should want to help them.
Know that this will be to your eternal shame. And I warn the Zionist regime and its masters: if, if you commit such a mistake as to want to launch another war against the wronged Lebanese nation, know that, this time, the ocean of the wrath of the nations of the region will become stormy and will tear out your diseased and rotten roots from this region.”

He is talking about retaliation.

“They must fear the day (Iran’s) 2,000-kilometer range missiles land in the heart of Tel Aviv,” he said.
This statement was made in the context of a response to an Israeli attack:
jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525877519&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

I response to an attack is different than initiating an attack.

I’ll get to your other crap later.

dave742 on April 8, 2008 at 8:43 PM